ISRAEL: I think what struck me the most was the anonymity with which people gave. There was a group of Vanderbilt college students with backpacks on that were walking down the street—this is about 2 days after the flood, I think, it was very early on—and they had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and had apples and little bags of chips in their backpacks and they were just randomly going up to folks in the neighborhood, because at this point it was around lunch time and they’d been working all morning, people were taking a break, sitting out on their porch, drinking some water. It was so hot the days after the flood, I mean, it was oppressively hot. People were hanging out in their yards and their streets, chatting and talking. They began handing out sandwiches and apples and just saying we’re so sorry for your loss and we’re praying for you, that kind of thing. (begins to cry)
BLACKMAN: (encouraging) It’s okay.
ISRAEL: And they were handing out envelopes— (crying)
BLACKMAN: (encouraging) It’s okay.
ISRAEL: They were handing out envelopes and the envelopes had cash in it. So they had gone around to the student body and their sororities and fraternities and classes, and had collected cash and were just giving the envelopes to the families on their porch. They didn’t say who they were, they weren’t wearing a shirt to designate that they were even from Vanderbilt. We knew, because several of the families had asked, “Well where are y’all from, are you from a church?” They said, “Oh no ma’am, we’re Vanderbilt students.”
Most of the families, they didn’t touch the envelope until the students had walked off and then later they come up to me and they’re like, “Tiffany, there’s over $100 in these envelopes!” And to me, that just spoke volumes, the majority of these kids, these young adults, are not Nashvillians, they don’t have kind of the emotional ties; but I think it spoke volumes about their character and about their compassion and just the fact that, again, you said earlier, they just saw a need and they did something. And they did what they were able to do. And I just thought—that was really impressive to me. I saw a variety of things that happened during the flood, some of which left a bad taste in my mouth and I have to say that 98 percent of it, 99 percent of it grew my heart by volumes and that was one of those specific things. And they just slipped out like they slipped in, there was no pomp and circumstance, there was no looking for a photo op, they slipped in, they slipped out, and they moved on. And that was just so impressive to me, that was one of the definite moments of humanity, I guess.